4. Gabriele Basilico 3 1 Inside the great glazed parallelepiped, designed by the group of architects ABDR Associates of Rome. View of the entrance void on Via Milano. 2 Side fronting on Via Milano. The façade in plates of layered hardened structural glass is split horizontally and devoid of frame 3 Entrance from Via Piacenza. It is the main front of the new initiative 078-089 ABDR.indd 81 The complex equilibrium between past and present is a predominant component of the urban and architectural structure in the city of Rome. Within this intricate context distinguished by the presence of constructions from different epochs, a project for upgrading and architectural adaptation of Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Via Nazionale, and in particular of the former Serra Piacentini, is now being carried out on the existing reality. The ancient/modern duality is assumed as objective aimed at valorizing the new architectural element inserted in Palazzo delle Esposizioni, designed in the late 19th century by Pio Piacentini. The project, by the group of Roman architects ABDR, provides for rebuilding the former greenhouse in a contemporary key, in compliance with the requisites of the Salvaging Plan approved by the Municipal Administration. In the design, the accent is placed on functional, technological and formal integration, especially of the glass, predominantly used as material, combined with the light metal structure, with travertine, and with wood, to create an effect of transparency and intangibility. The other aspect of contemporary interest regards the study of environmental feasibility and in particular bioclimatic performance and energy savings. In planimetry, the project involves the terminal part of the building, consisting of a three-part rectangular section destined to the services and kitchens, a restaurant area and an entrance void lateral to the exhibition area distinguished by a spatial and three-dimensional play of wooden surfaces that emphasizes the double height and leads the gaze upward. Three different levels are determined by the three sectioned areas. From the height of the exhibition level and the entrance, iron stairs lead to the restaurant, then on to the terrace above the wooden dado of the kitchens, looking to the outside. The bearing structure consists of a trilithic system of nine steel columns per side with diameter ranging from 120 to 200mm on the short sides, and arriving at 400mm on the long side. The facades of the great parallelepiped are split horizontally, modularly defining in height the new volume of the greenhouse, whose ceiling arrives at the stringcourse of the existing structure. The minimal language adopted identifies elementary spatial figures that do not contrast with the purist forms of the exhibition building. The intersection of several elementary forms, of different material consistency, establishes a hierarchy of weights and measures recognizable according to five volumetric typologies. The great glazed parallelepiped, the ceiling defined by big metal arches, the block containing the services, the cube containing the kitchens and the volume of the exhibition area and the entrance from Via Milano, located 19-12-2007 9:38:56

Bow Flat Melissa Burgundy Red Women’s Space Pink Ad Love Ii Ballet 51558 0HEqg Gabriele Basilico 13 12 Detail glass plate-bracket attachment: 1. stainless steel cables; 2. hardened layered glass; 3. rollers; 4. steel bracket; 5. anchoring between brackets and pillars 13 View of the interior. The inside and outside are optically continuous and light is the dominant element 078-089 ABDR.indd 87 on one of the short sides, while the other turns toward S.Vitale. The glazed prism, out of the urban scale, a simple linear volume by day, is an “urban lantern” by night, a luminous glow that becomes a motif of urban reconnection on the Via Piacenza side, on which faces the main façade, and an element of urban acceleration in triggering a process of transformation of the part of the city concealed behind Palazzo delle Esposizioni. The intangibility of transparency as restoration and architectural rearrangement defines a structural and technological contemporary quality that establishes dialogue and coexistence with the past, revisited under a new perspective. Transparency, natural light, the dominant feature of the ABDR project, had already been dealt with as theme by Costantino Dardi in his proposal for restructuring the building at the end of the last century (around 1990). It provided, in fact, not only for salvaging the original quality of the interior spaces, altered by the additions made over the years, but also for exalting the vertical view of the building’s three levels through the utilization of light, by means of three great “luminous machines”. But critical restoration of spatial adaptation has been achieved with the ethereal, atmospheric concept of the glazed prism of ABDR, which designed that symbolic presence. The utilization of plates of layered structural glass, hardened and with low emission factor, of large size – on the average, 40mm thick, 1630mm wide and 2400mm long – devoid of frames and supported by a system of metal brackets anchored to horizontal windbracing, it too composed of glass plates of variable size, confers on the great volume a visual perception of lightness and harmonious insinuation into the original form, tangible, opaque and light-colored, of the building, devoid of openings, closed in on itself. The facades are shielded by curtains to satisfy the bioclimatic environmental requisites. 11-12-2007 11:41:36

11. Gabriele Basilico Progetti “Serra ex-Piacentini” Palazzo delle Esposizioni di Roma Projects “Ex-Piacentini” greenhouse of the exhibition hall in Rome 88 14 078-089 ABDR.indd 88 14 View of the upper terrace on the top floor, of the vault and of the monumental wall with pilaster strips of Palazzo delle Esposizioni 15 In the foreground, the surfaces lined with wood that direct the gaze to the upper levels. Above, the horizontal plane in double glass of the ceiling under the low barrel arch of the roof The ceiling in the parallelepiped consists of a horizontal plane of double glass – with thickness of 40mm, width of 1630mm, and length of 2600mm – fixed to a light metal frame with vertical legs and stays that are hooked to the structure of the ceiling. On the outside, this floor has a reflecting surface to provide shielding against sunlight, contributing to the mechanism of tubular brise-soleils above 25 of them, 20mm apart, which rest on the ceiling creating a semi-transparent diaphragm, either shielding against the light or permeable to it depending on the season. The roof of this luminous solid permeable to sight, crowned by the low barrel vault, is an airy volume, open and ventilated, composed of nine purlines with distance between centers of 5,20m, connected by an HEB400 beam, consolidated by cables and struts and covered by bird-proof netting. The interruption between the Piacentini structure and the new glazed one is designed to determine discontinuity between the two masses, the one material, the other intangible, by means of recessing one of the facades, and through a fissure detaching the volumes from the monumental wall of the existing structure. The use of contrasts is one of the salient features of the design composition, which paradoxically reconnects and reconfigures space, establishing a dialogue between the old and the modern. Situated in the lower part are the service volumes faced in travertine panels over a metal substructure fixed to the existing wall; they are visible to the outside on the main façade, and between the two is a public terrace. Between interior and exterior there no longer exists an unbridgeable gap, which is eliminated by transparency and by the system of terraces that are interconnected to the air-conditioned spaces through the glazed perimeter, ensuring spatial continuity between the different areas. The luminous machine has evolved into an ethereal mechanism of remarkable environmental quality, and serving as an urban signal. 11-12-2007 11:41:43